


Room to Breathe

by aphroditesdove



Series: Oneshots [19]
Category: You Me At Six
Genre: Fluff, Hospitals, M/M, Pain, Surgery, serious injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 10:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19171084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphroditesdove/pseuds/aphroditesdove
Summary: Matt's lung collapses and he's attended to by a very nice (and attractive) nurse.





	Room to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Title from: Room to Breathe; You Me At Six  
> Sorry this one took so long. I took forever to write it and then my editor went on vacation and then I moved and everything's been hectic. But here's some Helnes fluff to make up for it.

**_narrative_ **

 

It takes a while for Matt to realize anything’s wrong. Sure, his chest hurts a little, but nothing seems terribly off until he clocks into work one day, and after an hour or so, an excruciating pain starts blooming in his side. He has another forty five minutes left of his shift, so he manages to work through them and then drives to his flat and promptly lies down, groaning. 

Twenty minutes later, he hears Chris unlocking the door, and soon his friend’s face is hovering over him.

 

“You alright?” He asks.

 

“My - fuck - my fuckin’ chest hurts so much.” Matt replies, making a face.

 

“Do you want me to get you ice or something?” 

 

“A beer would be great.” Chris nods, and Matt can hear the fridge open and the sound of cans and a tab popping. 

 

“Here.” 

 

Chris hands Matt his beer and sits down on the recliner next to the couch. Matt makes it about two and a half hours before he literally feels like he’s about to pass out, so he rolls over onto his not-hurting side and goes to sleep. He wakes up in more pain than he ever thought was capable to man, groans, and then remembers he doesn’t have to go into work.

Thank fucking God. 

Matt tries to sit up, but that only makes the pain worse. So he settles for laying on his back and taking deep breaths. The pain subsides the tiniest bit - enough for Matt to speedwalk to the bathroom and dry swallow some Ibuprofen- and he decides today is going to be a ‘Love Island and nap’ kind of day. 

He flops down on the couch again, reaching for his laptop and setting it on his stomach. Sometime between the third and fourth episode of the third season, Matt falls asleep and when he wakes up, Chris is poking his face with an ice cube. 

 

“Matt. Matt. Matthew.” Matt scrunches his face up and blinks a few times, moving to bat Chris’ ice cube-wielding hand away.

 

He fails, instead only succeeding in making his physical state considerably worse as the pain in his chest burns. Chris notices his wincing.

 

“Does your chest still hurt?”

 

Not trusting his voice to form words, Matt just nods, and Chris makes a face.

 

“We’re going to the hospital.” He decides. Matt opens his mouth to protest, but it seems to only intensify the pain, and he decides that a hospital visit may do some good. Chris calls his girlfriend Georgina, who has his car, and asks her to come pick them up. 

 

About five minutes later, everything starts to hurt, and Matt thinks he might actually black out. Chris looks worried, and as soon as Georgina texts him that she’s outside their flat, he tries to help Matt sit up. After a few failed attempts, Chris manages to all but carry Matt to the elevator and get them safely out to the parking lot. With Georgina’s help, they manage to lay Matt down in the backseat of Chris’ car and drive to the hospital as fast as legally possible. 

It takes about twenty minutes to get to the hospital, and another twenty just to find somewhere to park. With Matt between them, Chris and Georgina manage to get him through the hospital’s sliding doors and into the waiting room, where a chirpy brunette woman is seated behind a desk, and a bunch of drunks sit, sprawled across chairs. Chris and Georgina share a worried look. If this many people are waiting, it could take hours for Matt to see a doctor. 

Also, by this point, Matt doesn’t even think he’s capable of speaking. Chris checks him in at the desk and he’s given a wristband and a clipboard asking for some basic information, as well as what’s wrong with him.

Matt writes ‘sudden, unbearable chest pain’ in the description box, circles a ‘9’ on the pain scale, and writes out all the medical history he can remember. When he’s done, Georgina takes the clipboard and gives it to the medical secretary, who hands it off to a passing nurse. 

After about ten minutes, Matt hears his name. He’s pretty surprised to get care this quickly, but doesn’t object as Chris helps him stand up. The nurse immediately seems to see that Matt’s having trouble walking and requests a wheelchair for him, but Chris explains to her that sitting makes his pains worse. 

A nurse gets him into a hospital room and changed into a hospital gown. After a bit of confusion, he’s scheduled for an x-ray the next morning, and hooked up with an IV of fluids.

Since it’s after visiting hours, Georgina and Chris aren’t allowed into the patient rooms, but a nurse sneaks them in long enough for Georgie to hand Matt a muffin and give him a motherly talk about drinking enough water while Chris grins at her. He pats Matt’s hand, tells him they’ll be round tomorrow during visiting hours if they can be, and then the two are escorted out by a nurse.

The next morning, after the x-ray, the radiologist informs Matt that he has what appears to be a collapsed lung. She uses a very scientific word that Matt can’t remember or pronounce, but she explains that he’s going to need a chest tube and he’ll have to stay a few nights to make sure he’s recovering okay. He’s brought to the surgical wing to get his chest tube inserted, and the local anesthetic doesn’t knock him out but he’s pretty sure he’s tripping a little and can feel the tube scrape his rib. 

By the time he’s situated in his room again, in a comfortable mound of pillows and hospital blankets and his chest tube hooked up to this weird thing that’s pumping all the air and lung stuff out of his chest cavity, it’s half past twelve and he decides a nap sounds nice. 

When Matt wakes up, a nurse is adjusting the pressure on the chest pump and checking his heartbeat.

 

“Hey,” Matt whispers. “What time is it?”

 

The nurse jumps a little, almost knocking into the plastic cabinet next to Matt’s bed.

 

“About three in the afternoon.” The nurse says, glancing at a clock on the wall. Matt sinks into his hospital bed and cranes his neck to see what the nurse is doing. Suddenly, the pinch near where his tube is intensifies.

 

“Ow.” Matt groans, exhaling loudly.

 

“Sorry, haven’t used one of these in ages.” The nurse apologizes. 

 

Matt shifts a little to look at the whiteboard in his room, since it has the names of his nurses. Jessie and Max. He’s guessing Jessie is the female nurse who brought him to the x-ray room, so this nurse must be Max.

 

“Are you Max?” He asks. The nurse jumps again. 

 

“Uh, yeah,” he replies. “Why do you ask?”

 

“Dunno. Guessing I might be here a whil- Ow, Jesus Christ.”

 

Max apologizes sheepishly, trying to not accidentally bump into Matt’s chest tube again. 

 

“Do you want me to plug this in?” Max asks, holding up Matt’s phone. Matt nods and thanks him as he’s leaving. 

 

Chris and Georgina stop by before dinner and Max comes in with a tray of food.

 

“Tea time,” he smiles, moving a table over and propping Matt up so he can eat. Matt decides that Max has a very nice smile. 

 

The food is better than usual hospital food, something Matt has only experienced once when he broke his leg trying to do a backflip into Georgina’s pool. 

Max comes back about half an hour later to check Matt’s vitals, and Matt’s heartbeat seems to quicken a few paces when Max’s hand brushes his. Chris and Georgie leave when visiting hours end, and after they leave, Max comes back again with a tin of chocolates and gives one to Matt.

 

“Everything’s looking good. Everything feeling okay?” Max asks.

 

“Erm… Yeah.” Matt says. Max smiles and Matt’s heartbeat picks up again and that’s a little embarrassing, but Max doesn’t say anything about it so neither does Matt. 

 

Max turns off the lights in Matt’s room and he drifts off. The next morning, Matt’s woken up by the sound of a door opening and closing. Max comes in with a bagel and a pat of cream cheese, smiling sheepishly.

 

“Sorry, did I wake you?” He asks. Matt shakes his head.

 

“Here’s breakfast. The patient cafeteria has eggs, but their eggs are shit.” Max jokes, wiping down the table and setting the bagel down. “Anyways, I hope the bagel is okay.”

 

“Thanks.” Matt smiles. Max nods and goes about adjusting the pressure on Matt’s chest pump again, going through his vitals. 

 

“Everything feeling alright?” 

 

“Yeah.” 

 

“Doctors say you should be out within forty eight hours, probably sooner.” 

 

“Cool.” 

 

The doctors prediction ends up being mostly accurate. Matt spends another day in the hospital before he’s cleared for discharge, and Chris is at work but Georgina stops by to pick him up. As he’s buttoning up the shirt Georgina brought, Max slips into the room with a sheepish grin.

 

“Hi.”

 

“Hey.” 

 

“Here. Hope your recovery goes well.” Max hands him a gift card. Matt thanks him and gives him a little halfway hug because he’s not sure his chest can handle a full-on hug. 

 

“Ready?” Georgina appears in the doorway and Matt nods, doing up the last button on his shirt and thanking Max profusely. 

 

It’s not until he’s in the car that Matt looks at the gift card properly. He chuckles - it’s a Nando’s gift card - and then flips the card over and sees, in loopy handwriting, a string of numbers. The words ‘call me. -max x’ are written underneath the numbers, and Matt fumbles for his phone.

 

“You okay?” Georgina asks, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Yeah… Yeah. I’m good.” Matt confirms, typing in Max’s number and shooting him a quick text. Georgina glances over and sees the numbers on the card.

 

“I’ll never get it, Barnes,” she comments. “You’ve managed to seduce a man while in a hospital gown with one and a half functioning lungs.”

 

Matt laughs, and Georgina calls Chris to let him know that Matt’s okay and they’re heading home. Two weeks later, Matt and Max meet up at a nice Japanese restaurant on the block near Matt and Chris’ flat. 


End file.
